Happy/Scared/Hungry/Delusional? - you decide..

Happy/Scared/Hungry/Delusional? The Blind Tiger Collective has kicked off has kicked off a week long (more than a) Pop Up Shop in Little Green Gallery..I got a chance to stick my head in to drop off our t-shirts the other day and Elena snapped this oh so flattering picture..Happy/Scared/Hungry/Delusional - you decide!! And, once you've decided, make sure you pop into the BTC shop in Little Green, a whole ton of events happening down there..You don't wanna miss it...

Totebags and Notebooks - Gone for Good!

It's been a feckin' age and a half since I've posted a blog post and I will explain the silence at some stage but for now I've just gotta mention that our totebags and notebooks are now sold out.. It's a bittersweet moment - nice that we've sold out of them but then, on the other hand, kinda sad to see them go.. I guess it means we can now come up with more nifty bags and notebooks (we will, we are) but maybe I'm just a sentimental goof who misses these inanimate objects.. Also, giving you fair warning now that a lot of our t-shirts are running low too..We've been nice and busy here thanks to a huge GrabOne sale we did and literally have hundreds of t-shirts to pack and ship in the coming days.. We're ready! Anyway, bye bye totebags and notebooks.. Do you have one of our totebags/notebooks? If so, I sincerely hope that in about 30 years time they are worth a nice chunk of change - how cool would that be?

The Makings of the T-Shirt

The Makings of the T-Shirt
For men and women to power dress these days, they need to ditch their suits and grab a cool, cotton, casual T-shirt. T-shirts are now what padded shoulders and pinstriped suits were in the eighties and nineties- they tell your boss and colleagues ‘you mean business.’ It’s largely thanks to the billionaire co-founder of the social networking site, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, that the humble T-shirt has come to its present prominence as a garment to wear to work. The man responsible for connecting over 500 million people across the world through social networking is usually seen wearing worn out jeans, T-shirts and a hoodie or fleece. Wearing a casual T-shirt in the 21st century implies you are a potential successful entrepreneur similar perhaps to Zuckerberg in the film Social Networking.

These days the bosses are wearing cool T-shirts and comfortable trainers to work while those still donning a shirt and tie look stodgy. They look like relics in the workplace who need to be replaced with the energetic fresh blood who is inevitably wearing a T-shirt.

It is true the T-shirt has been through many different eras when it varied in popularity, yet it always seemed to play a part but it is the first time it is now being associated with successful business rather ‘young, cheap and cheerful,’ as some might put it.

It was after World War II that it became common to see men wearing T-shirts as veterans wore their uniform trousers with their T-shirts as casual clothing. They became even more popular in the 1950s after Marlon Brando wore one in the film, A Streetcar Named Desire, which is when T-shirts achieved their status as fashionable, tops. In the 1960s T-shirts were a staple fashion item for the youth and rock ‘n’ rollers, in the 1970s they were ensconced in pop culture, and in the mid-1980s the white T-shirt became fashionable after the actor Don Johnson wore it with an Armani suit in Miami Vice.

Some of the most popular symbols marking an event such as a protest or event like a pop concert emerge printed on the cotton T-shirt. Designers are only to away of this as some designer ranges in T-shirts have been sold like hot cakes. With summer just around the corner sales in T-shirts which are ideal summer attire, are expected to rise, as people need not just one or two in their wardrobe but a selection to stay cool and fresh throughout the week. Young designers trying to establish a ‘name’ for themselves are creating new designs on T-shirts which they hope will appeal to a mass audience this summer. The race for the T-shirt design, which could epitomize this summer, is already underway – young designers don’t miss out on the race get your creative juices working.

Many personalized T-shirts advertising businesses or organizations such as leisure centers, physiotherapists and building companies are minimalist, words discretely attached to one side of the T-shirt. While a more recent approach is a company design emblazoned across the entire front. People become human billboards when they set out in a T-shirt with their company slogan all over it.

Even high street shops sell T-shirts with the name of their chain publicized on it for passer-by to see. T-shirts are ideal to send out; because they are light parcel2go.com is cheap.

Charities have found much success in designing T-shirts advertising their cause. Some charities have even sold T-shirts with their name on, in the high street while others leave them for fundraisers to wear during special event such as sponsored runs or walks.

Commemorative T-shirts can be Priceless

You might think T-shirts which advertise you’ve been to a certain place or done a certain event, are a bit naff but they can serve a similar purpose to a photograph. In the future when you come across them folded up neatly in a draw, they can trigger happy memories of the past. They may mark a once in a life time visit to a remote far off place and if they are a celebration of a sporting event, they’re proof as you get older that you were once capable of it - then, they might not have cost a great deal at the time to but they will be priceless to you.

This is a guest post by Imogen Reed from LineGray. If you would like to sponsor a post get in touch..

Bags of the stuff..

We recently held a sale with GrabOne which resulted in an insane amount of orders in a very short period of time.. LUHQ has been transformed into an all singing, all dancing t-shirt packing compound where Elena is the lead folding machine and Rob (me) is the marksman with the pen and address labels and the "spreadsheetUpdaterGuy"..

It's been great having so many orders and sending so many t-shirts out although the post office wasn't best pleased - usually when I arrive to post orders it doesn't take about 15 minutes for them to add stamps to them (stamps which have doubled in price, sigh) but due to the quantity there is quite a bit of work to be done..

The sale has come at a good time for us though.. Things have been a bit, well, challenging and tough here at LUHQ, and this is the shot in the arm that we needed to get reinvigorated and by god I think I am reinvigorated (or maybe it's the coffee coarsing through me).. Elena has been doing stellar work and has created some really great designs for later this year (dresses people, dresses!!!) and she is working on what could possibly be the coolest diary for 2013..

Anyway, I've probably let a cat of a bag that I shouldn't have but such is life..I wanted to ramble slightly and let you, our LadyUmbrella friends and fans, know what's happening in LUHQ.. Why? Cos you're all freakin' great!!!

Now, just a few more orders to get finished so we best crack on..You can of course keep us packing though, you know what to do! Ole...

HUGE GrabOne Sale - 50% OFF!

Hi there, how are you?!! It has been like 4 Ice Ages since the last update but things have been beyond mental in the halls of LUHQ and time/focus is a rare commodity these days.. I'm sure at some stage I'll document the last 6 weeks but not now, not today..Today is all about our HUGE GRABONE SALE!! with 50% off!

We're happy to be able to team up with GrabOne again. There are lots of good people working there behind the scenes and they are a great crew to work and deal with. And, the sure do come up with good deals.. They (and their facebook fans) handcrafted this deal - the top 3 t-shirts chosen by the fans and then 50% off the price - nice! You can avail of the good good now but the deal ends in 11 hours and 24 minutes (at time of writing hehe)..

The t-shirts up for grabs are LadyUmbrella is Friends with Sir David Attenborough, LadyUmbrella and the Wise Owl,
and LadyUmbrella and her Famous Friends - which one do you want?

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Wow, things have been crazy busy here in LUHQ, regular readers would have been able to tell that due to the lack of blog posts - I do apologise.. I'll explain the reasons for being so busy at a later date but suffice to say a certain Blind Tiger is taking a lot of my time...

Anyway, this short blog post is to just wish you all a very happy Valentine's Day - you've all been insanely supportive over the last few years to myself, Elena & LadyUmbrella and we hope you'll continue to be supportive, even to the progeny of LadyU - introducing "Little LadyUmbrella" - let us know what you think of her :)

It Doesn't Look Like Much Now But..

..this will be our shop! Let the kit out begin - ole!

What a crazy few weeks! You might have heard that a few weeks ago we opened up a pop up shop for four days called the Blind Tiger Collective and, well, long story short, it went very well! So well that we are now going to open up a full time shop on South William Street, Dublin..

We are going to launch in early February and really can't wait..The shop is going to stock all of our LadyUmbrella gear as well as a whole ton of other Irish brands..You can find the full list of brands on the Blind Tiger facebook page and you can start to get excited about the launch - we are!

Stay tuned for progress reports on how the kitting out and setting up of the shop goes..And, will you call into us?

P.S. Sharing is caring! Our IT boffins have have got a new Facebook "like" button and Twitter ReTweet button on the top of all our blog posts..Give them a click and make us smile!

Our 2nd Birthday Sale!

Birthdays are special times of the year - especially when it's our own LadyUmbrella who is celebrating it.. Today, our LadyUmbrella is 2 years old.. My, she is growing up so quickly :)

When we started with LadyUmbrella we never thought we'd make it this far but low and behold, here we are..And, we have to thank you for being able to make it this far..The support and custom we've received from you has really been phenomenal and without it we wouldn't be marking this 2nd birthday..

And, speaking of marking the birthday, we're having a birthday sale! We're happy to give you 30% off everything in our shop this weekend when you enter code birthdaybash30 - you'll also get free shipping..We really hope we'll get to send something to you :) The code will expire on midnight on Monday..

Elena also designed the graphic to your right which features a variety of birds that have featured in previous designs..Can you figure out which birds are from which designs? Have a go! :)

Anyway, back to cake for now - stay happy all :)


P.S. Sharing is caring! Our IT boffins have have got a new Facebook "like" button and Twitter ReTweet button on the top of all our blog posts..Give them a click and make us smile!

And the Facebook Fan of the Month is..

As you might have heard we're running a giveaway each month on facebook where we give our top facebook fan a t-shirt of their choice..To be a top facebook fan you have to like, comment and share our facebook posts and who have has the most points come the 15th of each month will win a t-shirt of their choice...Simples..And, this month, our first ever top facebook fan is........Vera Hayes! Big time congrats to you Vera and please get in touch with us to let us know which t-shirt you'd like!

Stay tuned for another winner, same time next month..it could be you!


P.S. Sharing is caring! Our IT boffins have have got a new Facebook "like" button and Twitter ReTweet button on the top of all our blog posts..Give them a click and make us smile!

2011 - The Year in Review

We're a year older and a year wiser from the time we did the review last year and it's been another eventful year..Now, for posterity, I'll try chronicle the highlights (and lowlights) of 2011, here we go....

January:
- We celebrate our first birthday with TNT fervour..
- We quickly realise that January is a quiet month

February:
- We, not for the first time, make a silly but fun movie, "Lights On, Lights Off"
- Some common ground with John Rocha is found..
- Still can't shake off that love bug as love is in the air when cupid strikes..

March:
- We experience our first trade show, the Futura Fair, and the fallout that it brings.
- We're Irish Blog Award FINALISTS! A nice trip to an award ceremony..
- Rob gets a captive audience and talks twitter..

April:
- It's not easy to impress our post office lady, but we did it..
- We add a new dimension to LadyUmbrella as we unleash our illustrations..

May:
- We take part in the Fashion Stage at Mindfield, fun times and video..
- 40,000 tweets milestone passed, OCD much?
- Birthdays ain't what they used to be..

June:
- We take a Diet Coke Break..
- The Annual WOW Sale recap, a whole lot of wow..
- LadyUmbrella takes a Dip in the Nip

July:
- One of our illustrations wind up being used in an exhibition - nice!
- Some of our video superstars get catalogued...


August:
- We team up with GrabOne for one heck of a mad sale..
- We get a lovely mention in the Dubliner Magazine..
- Our time in the Loft, sadly, comes to an end as we exit stage Loft..

September:
- We take part in a Pop Up Shop in the Grand Social, fun times..
- A bit of Blue September action..
- We did the photoshoot for our 3rd collection of t-shirts, some behind the scenes pictures are always nice..
- A terrible pun but an ok video, our number one fan ;)

October:
- We launch our 3rd collection of t-shirts and the journey begins!
- Nevermind 40,000 tweets, in October I passed the 50,000 tweets milestone - yikes!
- We were finalists in the Dublin Living Awards for Best Fashion Retailer in Dublin which is, really, mental but cool..

November:
- How many t-shirts did you say were hanging on the rail?
- Some of our items got stocked in Kwilla in Kilkenny, nice!
- We secure a place in the Project 51 Pop Up Shop, big time ole..
- A tipple and a tee and another random pop up, good to be busy..

December:
- We get stocked in Babylon in Clare and also deliver to Project 51, quite a day..
- We get our first ever mention on radio on Today FM when Ray D'Arcy opened the phones for Irish online shop suggestions, what a nice surprise..
- The Friday Finger Point is born..
- The Blind Tiger Collective roars onto the scene with a ton of video footage and good stuff..
- To conclude the year we received a Christmas Card that we never thought we'd get..

And so, that was the year that was 2011..All in all, upon reflection, quite an eventful year with lots of interesting things happening..That is one of the things I really love about LadyUmbrella - I have no idea what is going to pop up..Random things like Diet Coke, Dip in the Nip, GrabOne, Twitter Talks etc - all fun things to be involved in and something I never thought I'd do in 2011..So, with that said, I look forward to seeing what interesting things occur in 2012 and hope that come this time next year I'll have another enjoyable review of the year to pen..

What can you remember about LadyUmbrella from 2011 or what was most memorable for you?


P.S. Sharing is caring! Our IT boffins have have got a new Facebook "like" button and Twitter ReTweet button on the top of all our blog posts..Give them a click and make us smile!

Will You Win Our Facebook Top Fan Monthly Giveaway?

There are less than two weeks to go before we announce our inaugral top fan on facebook! Each month we're going to give a prize to our facebook fan that likes, comments, posts, shares and interacts with us the most by giving them a t-shirt of their choice...

You can see who is top of the charts right now and find out where you are in our top fan ranking leaderboard (it's tight at the top) and as you comment/like/share our facebook posts you'll move up the leaderboard..

We're going to give the first prize on the 15th of January and will give a prize out each month on the 15th, like clockwork :) For a chance to win you just have to be our top fan so get commenting, sharing and liking what you like on our facebook page...Do you think it'll be you? Ole!


P.S. Sharing is caring! Our IT boffins have have got a new Facebook "like" button and Twitter ReTweet button on the top of all our blog posts..Give them a click and make us smile!